Machine vision inspection is an integral component of many industrial processes. Machine vision systems are comprised of various components including a camera, lens, lighting elements, and mounting brackets to allow proper placement inside machinery. Though machine vision has been widely adopted and accepted by industry, there has been a continuing need for improvements in mounting brackets to allow rapid and repeatable positional adjustment of the camera and/or camera and lighting for production format changeovers to allow imaging of varying positions of camera field of view.
Numerous devices for the mounting of cameras have been developed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,758,205 discloses a photographic stand with a camera supporting plate positioned centrally and above the work surface, a frame carrying both the work surface and camera supporting plate and having means for holding light sources for illuminating the work surface and a rotatable camera mount on the camera supporting plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,998 discloses an inspection system for use with a moving conveyor having a video camera mounted above the conveyor and first and second prisms mounted below the camera but above the part to be inspected. The prisms are oriented to be parallel to two opposite ends of the part to be inspected. Therefore, as the conveyor moves the part below the prisms to an inspection location between the prisms, the camera provides simultaneous images of the ends of the part as well the part's upper surface.
European Patent Application No. 0 986 251 discloses an apparatus for the orthogonal (X,Y) movement which allows high-resolution color photography in both the X and Y directions, by micro-movement of the CCD sensor within a digital camera body is provided which can be used together with a rotatable mount for rotating the CCD sensor from portrait mode to landscape mode, without needing to rotate the camera base.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,986,294 discloses an automated instrument package (AIP) suited to mount on the inside ceiling of a large silo. The gimbaled AIP vertical mounting bracket rotates in an approximate 360° azimuth. An instrument housing is mounted to the vertical mounting bracket, and it rotates approximately 190° in a vertical plane. The instrument housing has at least one range finding sensor such as a scanning laser to measure the top surface contours of the bulk material. The instrument housing can also contains other sensors such as air and quality instruments including temperature, humidity, spectral recognition sensor to detect grain/material type and/or flow rate, gas detectors for sniffing off-odors/spoilage/or safety problems, and live video.
Other references that are relevant include U.S. Pat. No. 866,257; U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,986; U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0059038; and U.S. Pat. No. 8,374,498. However, none of the disclosures provided in these references are suitable for rapid and repeatable positional adjustment of the camera and/or camera and lighting for production format changeovers to allow imaging of varying positions of camera field of view in machine vision applications.